To inaugurate their first season as ensemble in residence at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood in partnership with St. John’s Institute, the Syndicate for the New Arts recently presented two concerts that provided audiences with completely different listening experiences. The concerts also provided a glimpse into the types of out-of-the-box programming the Syndicate might have in store for the future. [Read more…]

Born in Romania, displaced by the Nazis, educated in Hungary, and finally settling first in Vienna then in Germany after the 1956 Hungarian revolution, György Ligeti spent a lot of his life on the move. Musically nomadic as well, he chased after a number of different compositional styles. Two of Ligeti’s pieces composed thirty years apart formed the backbone of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble’s arresting program in Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday afternoon, April 11. [Read more…]

Re•Views

Last Sunday, August 12, an all-Brahms concert by the Master Singers Chorale and Orchestra at SS. Cosmas and Damian Church in Twinsburg honored the retirement of founding artistic director J.D. Goddard. The afternoon’s high point was the performance of the Fourth Symphony.

The days become shorter and hotter. School resumes. Vacationers unpack. We all know how this part of the summer feels: at once hazy and pell-mell, static and sped up. Northeast Ohioans can celebrate the fact that, for the fifth year running, The Cleveland Orchestra is inviting listeners into its cool urban home for the Summers@Severance series. In the second of three concerts, conductor Vasily Petrenko made good on the Orchestra’s new vow to tell “stories…without a single word,” through music born of travel and migration.

It was another enjoyable movie night at Blossom Music Center with The Cleveland Orchestra on Saturday, August 4. On offer was The Little Mermaid (1989) — a film which had kicked off the rebirth of Disney animated musicals through the ‘90s. Conducted by Sarah Hicks to sync with five gigantic screens and a packed lawn full of families, The Cleveland Orchestra brought Alan Menken’s magical music to life.

No Exit’s chamber concert on Saturday, July 28 at Heights Arts performed by clarinetist Gunnar Owen Hirthe and flutist Hong-Da Chin, engagingly juxtaposed traditional Chinese music with contemporary Western repertoire. The program also highlighted the wonders of micro-tonality. Surrounded by the Gallery’s complex, yet minimalist exhibit, Sticks and Stones, the evening was a walk through a cultural garden of sonic delights. [Read on…]

A glorious evening of music titled “Audra McDonald Sings Broadway” featured that justly famous soprano performing with The Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Andy Einhorn. The July 29 program at Blossom Music Center included a variety of songs from musicals famous and rare, from the works of Rodgers & Hammerstein to living composers.

On Sunday, August 5 at Blossom Music Center, The Cleveland Orchestra played a concise and musically satisfying program of works by three Czech composers: Smetana, Janáček, and Dvořák. British conductor Michael Francis led the stylish performance. With the temperature hovering around a sweltering and humid 87 degrees at concert time, the male members of the orchestra sensibly doffed their usual white dinner jackets for shirtsleeves. Even the tree-surrounded — and usually cooler — Blossom grounds failed to provide much relief from the midsummer heat.

Having recently turned 91, Herbert Blomstedt is practically an institution in himself, with a career spanning more than six decades. On Saturday, July 28, he returned to Northeast Ohio to lead The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center in two canonical symphonies by Mozart and Brahms. The “Jupiter” was so smooth and straightforward as to pass by unremarkably, while the stirringly passionate performance of Brahms 4 showed how a seasoned conductor with a top-flight orchestra can achieve magic.